


Rude Awakening

by wheel_pen



Series: Khan AU [15]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-05
Updated: 2015-12-05
Packaged: 2018-05-05 02:41:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5357915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheel_pen/pseuds/wheel_pen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An emergency on the Enterprise forces Kirk to revive several more Augments suddenly. Khan is impressed by his efforts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rude Awakening

**Author's Note:**

> The bad words are censored. That’s just how I do things.  
> I hope you enjoy this AU. I own nothing and appreciate the chance to play in this universe.
> 
> Visual reference:  
> Ariel Milan--Daniel Craig  
> Quill Gupta--Ben Whishaw

“Target their weapons array!” Kirk ordered tensely. “Fire!”

Light exploded across the screen. “Direct hit, Captain!” Chekhov reported. “Their weapons are down.”

All the advanced technology, advanced ideas, advanced diplomacy, and sometimes it still came down to two people beating on each other. Well, ships in this case. “What’s their status?” Kirk demanded.

“No weapons, no engines,” Sulu replied evenly. “Life support is holding.”

Sounded like they weren’t going anywhere. “Damage report,” Kirk summoned, taking a little time to breathe. Notes began to trickle in from across the ship—some damage, so far all repairable.

“Message from Dr. McCoy,” Spock announced. From his posture Kirk assumed he’d been holding onto it until a more appropriate moment. “He must awaken some of the Augments, whose cryo-tubes were damaged in the attack—“

Kirk was at the turbo-life before Spock could finish speaking. “Keep an eye on them,” he ordered, indicating the ship drifting across the screen. He knew Spock would do so anyway.

Augments. Sleeping so soundly in their cargo bay—it was only a matter of time before something like this happened, and the super-humans were as helpless to escape as infants. If any of them died—Kirk realized suddenly that his first thought was regret, only later followed by concern at Khan’s reaction.

He hopped out on the deck near Cargo Bay 12; the hallway was in chaos. Augment tubes littered the floor, tumbled but intact, with McCoy and his medical team scanning each urgently. Malaya dragged another one from inside the bay, coolant fog and smoke escaping as well. “Cracked,” McCoy diagnosed grimly. “Get this one to Sickbay. Hamish! Incoming!”

“ _Understood_ ,” replied Hamish over the comm, but McCoy had already moved on to another tube rescued by Banjoko.

Kirk made eye contact with the doctor, then plunged into the cargo bay. Metal debris twisted across the floor and wires sparked, the emergency lighting throwing exaggerated shadows across everything. “This one, take this one next!” Khan was shouting from one end of the room, where smoke poured from a blasted vent. “Get her out of here!” Malaya picked up the cryo-tube and lugged it towards the door, awkward but doable. “Banjoko! Take this one!”

Kirk tried to grab a tube himself but it wouldn’t budge. “Kirk to Bridge. Can you beam the Augment tubes out of the cargo bay?”

“ _Negative, Captain_ ,” Spock replied, frustratingly. “ _Transporters are still down_ —“ Always the first d—n thing to go.

“Well get some more people down here on the double,” Kirk ordered. “We need to get these tubes out of here—“

There was a hiss and a flash, and a tongue of flame licked at one of the tubes, the unnatural plasma fire warping the glass. Khan shouted and leaped for it but Kirk was closer and he threw himself at the tube, knocking it to the ground beneath the fire. The glass shattered and he felt the shards sting his face; his hands burned, almost cold, and the pain took his breath away.

“Medic!” shouted Khan. “Get him out. Help him! Malaya! That one!”

“Easy there, Captain,” said a professionally soothing voice and Kirk watched a scanner light up his hands, as though they belonged to someone else. The pain dulled to numbness, not always preferable, and he was able to comprehend how badly damaged his hands were, the skin red and wrinkled.

“Ow,” he noted, slightly indignant.

“We’ll have them fixed up soon, Captain,” his attendant assured him. He was able to judge her pretty, so he couldn’t be too bad off, he told himself. Though whatever painkiller she’d given him first likely helped.

A blaze of red uniforms rushed past him. “Get those tubes into the hall!” Kirk called from his position on the floor. “Damaged ones to Sickbay. Take the—just listen to Khan!” he allowed. Khan had very definite ideas about which ones needed to go where.

“We should get you to Sickbay, Captain,” his attendant insisted, but Kirk put her off until Khan’s activity slowed, the trashed room empty of cryo-tubes. Khan, Malaya, and Banjoko stood panting slightly, their faces smudged and clothing torn. Then Khan spotted Kirk—his look was frightening, his determined march more so, and Kirk didn’t like his chances when Khan pulled him roughly to his feet.

“Sickbay, now,” Khan ordered sharply, dragging Kirk along. “Stay and watch them!” he told Malaya and Banjoko. “Check for damage!” He swept down the hall with the pretty med tech racing behind them.

“ _Khan_ —“ McCoy summoned over the intercom.

“On my way!” Khan snapped.

“Me too!” Kirk added, in case anyone cared. Mainly he just tried to keep up with Khan, so the other man wasn’t outright carrying him. “You can go on—“ Kirk conceded.

“You need to go to Sickbay,” Khan countered grimly, and kept on running with Kirk pulled behind. Finally they burst through the Sickbay doors.

But no one noticed, because the Augments were waking up.

There had to be a dozen of them, in varying stages of activity—some on their feet, defensive and vocal, others still on the biobeds shivering and struggling. They seemed disoriented and combative, while the medical staff and security tried to keep them contained without getting into a confrontation. Kirk saw Hamish trying to talk one down, while Ruby stood in a corner with her eyes closed, attempting to calm the entire room. Oh, and all the new Augments were naked, which somehow just added to the anarchy.

“I’m a doctor, I’m trying to help you, would you lie down please—“ Kirk heard McCoy insisting to a bald, muscular man, who twitched menacingly.

“Just calm down, you’re safe, we’ll explain everything—“ Hamish was telling a statuesque blond woman. The only reason she couldn’t just shove past him was apparently some residual weakness from the cryo-sleep, though she gave it a try.

A dark-skinned woman made for the doors and Kirk stepped in to block her path, raising his hands placatingly. “Now hang on, you’re fine—“ He’d forgotten his hands were burned—she noticed them right away and the sight only confused her further. Kirk had a sudden vision of naked, frightened Augments spilling through the halls.

“Silence!” Khan roared from the center of the room. A man tried to dart past him and was grabbed and shoved down to his knees. “Be still! On your knees, all of you!” To encourage this he pushed another Augment within reach to the floor, where she stayed. The woman who had been about to rush the doors, through Kirk if necessary, slowly turned to face Khan.

He circled the open area, making eye contact with each Augment. “I. Am. Your. Prince!” Khan declared, with utter conviction. “I. Am. Protecting. You! Get down on your knees!” His look said twice was more than enough for any order and he expected it to be fulfilled _now_. Kirk felt the very strong urge to kneel himself, if only to avoid Khan’s razor-sharp gaze when it scythed across the room. Haltingly, with no understanding of where they were or what was going on, their last memories of a world that hated and feared them, the Augments began to obey.

Only when they were all kneeling, stared down if necessary, did Khan continue speaking. “You will allow these people to assist you,” he commanded. “You will do as they order.”

Taking his cue, McCoy draped a blanket over one man—they were all shaking where they knelt—and encouraged him to get up. “Come on, up on this bed,” he persuaded, tugging lightly on his shoulders. “Come on, we’ll get you warm.” When the man responded positively, stiff and uncertain though he was, the rest of the staff began to jump in as well.

Except for the tech who’d followed Kirk from the cargo bay. “Captain, your hands,” she reminded him, urging him towards a scanner. Kirk trusted her to figure that out, while he kept an eye on the room.

The blond man Khan had first pushed down was still kneeling in the center of the room—defiantly he shrugged off the blanket someone tried to give him, and Khan whipped around to face him. He kept his head bowed, though, his posture humble. Kirk suddenly felt he was a man defeated, who wanted no comfort from his pain.

Khan approached him and put a hand to the side of his face tenderly. “Ariel. Get up now.”

Instead the man looked up at Khan with eyes almost as brilliantly blue as his own. “Ella?” he asked brokenly.

“The children are gone,” Khan reminded him, his tone tempered with some compassion. “But we are getting a second chance—“ Ariel didn’t care, didn’t want to hear it, and dropped his head to the ground, shaking. Khan signaled and two orderlies helped Ariel to his feet and guided him to a biobed, where he promptly turned away from the rest of the room. Soft sobs from various others cut through the silence.

Khan circled the interior of the room, gracing each Augment with his gaze in turn. “You are safe here,” he informed them. There was no persuasion in his tone—he expected them to believe what he said without question. “We are three hundred years in the future, traveling through space faster than the speed of light.” No one spoke, paying rapt attention to Khan; Ariel was the only one not staring at him. “There are many intelligent beings from other planets. And we are going to an uninhabited planet, that will be our own to tame and populate.”

The medical staff fluttered around the beds, taking blood samples, injecting locator beacons, adding blankets and hydration units. Hamish checked every set of readings himself and Ruby visited each person to put a hand on their cheek, calming and comforting.

“We have been given a second chance,” Khan repeated. “This ship is the _Enterprise_ , and there is her captain!” Kirk froze, suddenly in the spotlight as all the Augments fervently followed Khan’s gaze to him. “James T. Kirk. You will obey him as you obey me,” Khan ordered, and Kirk straightened up a little, trying to look worthy of such a charge.

“He risked his life to save you! A mere human,” Khan declared emphatically. The look he gave Kirk was… complex. “I have vouched for your good behavior,” he added warningly, seeming to direct this at specific Augments. His speech thus concluded, Khan chose a bed and spoke quietly to the person it held, clasping hands and leaning in close.

“All done, Captain,” the med tech said, and Kirk looked down at his hands in surprise, having forgotten that she was working. He flexed his fingers experimentally, finding the skin slightly tight, which was far better than boiled. “They might be a little stiff for a couple days,” she added.

“Thank you,” Kirk told her sincerely. “You really kept your head in there, well done. Ensign Metz, isn’t it?”

Her cheeks colored faintly at his praise and recognition. Nice he still had that effect on _someone_. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

“Metz, you done?” McCoy called sharply. “Over here.” She gave Kirk a little smile and hurried away.

No new Augments had come in to Sickbay, but Kirk called down to Malaya and Banjoko just in case. “How’s it going down there?”

“ _It’s okay, Captain_ ,” Malaya answered, still sounding slightly frazzled. “All the other tubes are intact.”

“ _How’re the ones in Sickbay?_ ” Banjoko asked worriedly.

Kirk glanced around. “Everyone seems fine.” There was one Augment who hadn’t awakened yet and seemed to be getting more attention from the medical staff, but most of the lights above him on the biobed were green. “Just sit tight, I’ll find a new storage area for the tubes.” Then he switched to the Bridge. “Kirk to Spock.”

“ _Spock here, Captain. What is the status of the Augments?_ ”

“There’s about a dozen of them awake now,” Kirk reported. “We need new bunks in Cargo Bay 7, and a safe place to put the tubes until Cargo Bay 12 is repaired.” But that was hardly Kirk’s top priority right now. “What’s the other ship doing?”

“ _Still drifting_ ,” Spock informed him. “ _They have formally surrendered and may require our assistance to become mobile again_.”

Kirk rolled his eyes. “Let’s not get carried away,” he replied. “If they’ve got life support and no one’s dying, they can just sit tight. How’s our warp engine?”

“ _Mr. Scott requested to see you in person_ ,” Spock passed on.

Well that didn’t sound good. “Okay, I’ll be in Engineering.” He turned to a couple of the security people. “Go down to Bay 12, see if the Augments need any help. Make sure the other cryo-tubes aren’t bothered.” They nodded professionally. “Bones.”

McCoy pulled himself away from a biobed. “You seem fine, though I heard you did something dumb again,” he assessed bluntly.

Kirk thought back. “Was it _that_ dumb? I was trying to help.” It was all a blur at this point. “I gotta go talk to Scotty. What’s the bottom line here?”

“Eleven Augments conscious, I think they’ll be fine,” McCoy summarized. “Little rougher because they woke up so suddenly. One was more injured, he’s still out, but I think he’ll recover.” He paused before conceding, “It was the one you saved, he would’ve been toasted.”

Kirk grimaced. “G-d, they’re sitting ducks in there,” he confessed worriedly, instead of feeling pleased with himself. “Maybe we should…”

“Hey, one batch at a time,” McCoy interrupted, glancing back at an Augment who was getting a little suspicious, or maybe curious, and thus troublesome. “Gotta go.” Kirk shook his head and left for Engineering, hoping Scotty’s problem wasn’t as permanent as a dozen new Augments to attend to.

**

It was late when Kirk made it back to Sickbay, and the lights had been dimmed, though he could still see people on every bed. They didn’t react to his appearance but he suspected they were still awake, if his own experience of trying to sleep in Sickbay was anything to go by. There was a light around the corner and he thought he might find McCoy, but instead he saw Khan, sitting still as a statue at one Augment’s side. He glanced up briefly at Kirk.

“Sorry,” Kirk told him, starting to leave.

“Kirk.” He turned back to see Khan staring at him pensively. “Stay a moment, if you can.”

“Sure,” Kirk agreed, and sat down on the other side of the bed. The young man asleep on it had pale skin, high cheekbones, and full lips, not dissimilar from Khan though with a slimmer build. In this light he looked very young, but Kirk knew they were all about the same age. “Who’s this?”

“Quill Gupta,” Khan replied. “He is particularly gifted in computer programming. I think he will find modern technology fascinating.”

There was something slightly melancholy in his tone. “Oh, is he the one who hasn’t woken up yet?” Kirk surmised. “How’s he doing?”

“He had serious burns from the plasma fire,” Khan reported, eyes searching the sleeping man’s face. “Dr. McCoy is keeping him in a coma until his injuries heal fully.”

“How long will that be?”

“A day or two.”

That didn’t sound too bad to Kirk. “How are the others?”

“They will adjust,” Khan judged. “They didn’t mean to be unruly earlier, they were merely disoriented from—“

Kirk waved it off. “It’s okay, I figured. The others are still okay in their tubes?”

“Mr. Spock had them moved to a conference room,” Khan reported. His manner was subdued and thoughtful, which worried Kirk. “Malaya and Banjoko are with them. Hamish is here in Sickbay, and Ruby has gone home to meditate.”

“I expect she had to feed Edna,” Kirk suggested, trying to lighten the mood a bit.

But Khan was the _best_ at keeping the mood just where he wanted it to be. “Thank you for allowing them to be awakened,” he said, facing Kirk.

“Well yeah. It was an emergency.” What did he think Kirk was going to do, let them die? “ _You’re_ the one who’s got to manage them all. At least you guys can play baseball now.”

“You risked your life to save Quill,” Khan went on, pinning Kirk with his gaze. “You were seriously injured doing so.”

“Not seriously,” Kirk downplayed. “I’m fine now.” Though the newly-regenerated skin on his hands itched like crazy.

Khan did not accept his modesty. “I am unused to humans who are sincere in their desire to help us,” he stated frankly. “We have always been feared and hated. Even to our creators we were results to be studied, tools to be used.” There was a long pause, then he met Kirk’s eyes fully. “I thank you, Kirk.”

For a moment, there was no trace of arrogance, only a quiet strength and overwhelming sincerity. Kirk understood how the others could follow him to the death, and had to look away.

“Marcus killed two of my family members,” Khan revealed, and Kirk’s gaze snapped back to him.

“ _What_?”

“Seventy-five of us were put to sleep,” Khan recounted. Gently he brushed Quill’s cheek with the back of his fingers. “Marcus knew I was dangerous and wanted to make sure he had a clean way to neutralize me when the time came. So he tested various weapons and toxins on two of my own. I was unaware of this until he told me, after they were dead.” Kirk didn’t know what to say; his look of horror spoke volumes to Khan. “You see why it was easy to believe he had killed all the others, when my plan to smuggle them out in the torpedoes failed.”

“It wasn’t hard to believe before,” Kirk admitted, given what he’d learned of the Admiral. “He was always planning to destroy the _Enterprise_ and her crew, so there wouldn’t be any witnesses to what he’d done.”

“Our common enemy is dead,” Khan concluded. Very dead, Kirk remembered that vividly. “But the people he killed will never be returned to us.”

Kirk nodded slowly. He had lost a lot of crewmembers due to Marcus’s actions. And a lot due to Khan’s actions. Not to mention the people in London and San Francisco. A lot of people had died, because Marcus had awakened Khan and treated him badly.

No: a lot of people had died because Khan was created to conquer and kill, and to value only his own kind.

Maybe, finally, that was changing.

“I look forward to meeting them all,” Kirk said, of the sleeping Augments.

Khan straightened up, pulled back to his responsibilities. “I will keep them all under control, Kirk,” he vowed. “They will not trouble you.”

“No, it’s been fine so far. I guess that one guy was upset about his daughter?” Kirk surmised, remembering the blond man who had seemed so desolate.

Khan nodded. “Ariel Milan. He claimed Ella as his daughter. Her mother isn’t awake yet.” He shrugged slightly. “We must all move past that. Bastet Kioshi is awake now, she had a daughter named Bibi.” And she hadn’t made a scene in Sickbay about it, his tone implied.

“Well, give them time,” Kirk advised. “I know you want to get right to the sex and the history and the knitting, but let them adjust for a little bit.” Khan raised an eyebrow at him. “A little self-reflection isn’t a bad thing.”

He could see Khan was about to scoff, and then he stopped. “Perhaps you’re right,” he conceded, which may have been the biggest shock of all.


End file.
